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Two Days on the CNO&TP and K&O in TN & KY

07-20-2014, 04:37 PM

Back at the end of June, we made a little trip down South to shoot the signals at Phillips, Highpoint and Pemberton TN, the day before they would be taken out of service. We spent a rather cloudy "moody" morning on the CNO&TP shooting everything we could, and sure enough saw more than our share of BNSF power....it seemed that every other train had a UWOC leading...blah...

After we had our fill of clouds and Orange, it was decided that a little ride over towards Knoxville was in order. We had learned that train 112 would be heading out the K&O district (Knoxville to the Harriman, TN) late in the afternoon, and that was to good to pass up. The K&O is a very scenic piece of railroad that does not see all that much traffic most days, so knowing for sure we would have a train made the diversion worthwhile. It was almost 1800 that evening before we got our first shot, and after the sun came out we followed them all the way over to Blair, TN.

I am also including a few shots from early this month of the new Double track that is now in service on the CNO&TP between Somerset and Burnside KY. After almost 2 years of work, that project is not complete and the bottleneck has been alleviated!

Northbound empty coal train 75J passes under the old GRS model SC searchlight signals at CP Phillips, Helenwood TN. You can see the crews working in the background, and these would be gone less than 24 hours later.

Standing in the operators office (the foundation anyway) of the Cincinnati Southerns depot at Helenwood TN looking North as NS train 167 approaches. I am not the first person to have this view, although I am sure it was a bit more pleasing with a bay window to look out of, the steady click of the telegraph in the background and a Green and Gold PS4 bearing down on you....not a pair of BNSF GE's

NS 112 crosses the Clinch River Bridge at Clinton TN on a hot, Muggy afternoon. The K&O District is not all that busy, but its worth the time to explore....there is some great scenery out there!

"Steady Hand" NS 112 works upgrade out of Clinton TN and around the curves at Laurel on the K&O Saturday evening. It takes a steady hand and razor sharp skills to bring a heavy train across territory such as this...the train is going in Three different directions (not to mention UP and Down) at the same time.

NS 112 splits downtown Oliver Springs TN in half as the train makes it's way across the K&O on a Saturday evening. We had not really planned on following the train as far as we did, but good light and scenery kept urging us on for One more shot...

07/12/14

NS 282 rolls through the new cut on the North end of the Pittman Creek bridge at Elihu, KY

Northbound 115 comes North across the new mainline at Jones Knob, KY on the CNO&TP. The new double track had only been open for a few days at this point.

Southbound 175 climbs away from Pittman Creek with the new #1 track visible on the right.